This invention relates to organic orthoformates and more particularly to fluoro-, nitro-, and fluoronitro-substituted organic orthoformates.
In the early 1950's, M. E. Hill and coworkers at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory found that certain nitroalcohols would react with chloroform in the presence of anhydrous ferric chloride to yield ##STR3## symmetrical orthoformates, (e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 3,306,939 entitled "Orthoesters of 2,2,2-Trinitroethanol," which issued to Marion E. Hill on Feb. 28, 1967.) However, the reaction is of very limited synthetic value for energetic orthoformates as only two nitroalcohols (2-fluoro-2,2-dinitroethanol and 2,2,2-trinitroethanol) have been successfully used. With other nitroalcohols side reactions predominate. Another drawback to Hill's method is that only symmetrical and no "mixed" orthoformates can be prepared. Moreover, it would be desirable to replace the primary hydrogen with other groups.